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60 free Victoria Falls trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Victoria Falls trivia quiz covers the largest sheet of falling water on Earth, from the geology that made it to the tourists who bungee-jump beside it. The easy questions are ones any traveller can attempt: the river, the two countries it divides, the explorer who named it after his queen, its African name and what it means. From there it moves into the numbers and the landscape: how wide and how high, the First Gorge and the Boiling Pot, the islands on the crest, the spray you can see from 50 kilometres away, the seasons that empty half the falls and the moonbows. The harder end is for geographers and Africa hands: the map that showed the falls in 1715, Livingstone Island, Emil Holub's plan, Cecil Rhodes and the bridge built to catch the spray, Sir George Darwin opening it, the 1904 hotel, Livingstone as Northern Rhodesia's capital, the fish counts above and below the falls, Devil's Pool, the Batoka Gorge dam plan and the 2019 drought that cut the flow to a century low. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on the falls, the Zambezi and the people and structures around them before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Africa geography, world waterfalls and explorers quizzes next.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The falls were named in 1855 in honour of which British monarch?
Queen Victoria
The Lozi name Mosi-oa-Tunya continues in common use alongside it.
Q 02Which two countries share Victoria Falls?
Zambia and Zimbabwe
Both have national parks and tourism infrastructure at the site.
Q 03What does the Lozi name Mosi-oa-Tunya mean?
The smoke that thunders
Both names are recognised on the World Heritage List, and the older names Seongo and Chongwe mean the place of the rainbow.
Q 04Which Scottish missionary was the first European recorded to see the falls, on 16 November 1855?
David Livingstone
He named them after his queen.
Q 05How wide is Victoria Falls?
1,708 m
Its combined width and 108-metre height make it the world's largest sheet of falling water.
Q 06How high is the falls at its maximum, in the centre of the First Gorge?
108 metres
The chasm is only 80 metres deep at its western end.
Q 07How wide is the only outlet from the First Gorge, through which the whole Zambezi pours?
110 metres
The gap lies about two-thirds of the way across the falls from the western end.
Q 08What is the deep swirling pool in the Second Gorge called?
The Boiling Pot
It is reached by a steep footpath from the Zambian side and is about 150 metres across.
Q 09Which of the main streams of the curtain is the highest?
The Rainbow Falls
The streams run from the Devil's Cataract on the Zimbabwe side to the Eastern Cataract on the Zambian side.
Q 10Roughly how high does the spray from the falls typically rise?
Over 400 metres
It can be seen from up to 50 kilometres away, and sometimes rises twice as high.
Q 11In which month does the Zambezi's flood peak at the falls?
April
The flood season runs from February to May, and in flood the foot of the falls cannot be seen for spray.
Q 12During which months may up to half of the rock face of the falls run dry?
September to January
The minimum flow in November is about a tenth of the flood peak.
Q 13What rare phenomenon can be seen in the spray at full moon?
A moonbow
Victoria Falls is one of the world's best-known sites for spray moonbows.
Q 14What did unusually low rain do to the falls in 2019?
Q 21Which British artist, who travelled with Livingstone in 1858, painted some of the earliest pictures of the falls?
Thomas Baines
He was one of the first white men to see them.
Q 22Whose vision of a Cape-to-Cairo railway drove the building of the first bridge across the Zambezi at the falls?
Cecil Rhodes
He never visited the falls and died before construction began.
Q 23Rhodes insisted the bridge be built at what kind of spot?
One where trains would catch the spray
So the site over the Second Gorge was chosen.
Cut the flow to its lowest in a century
Climate change and altered rainfall patterns have been suggested as causes.
Q 15How many principal gorges lie downstream of the falls?
Six
The deepest, Songwe Gorge, plunges 140 metres.
Q 16What rock does the Zambezi cut through at Victoria Falls?
Basalt
The plateau formed in the Jurassic, around 200 million years ago.
Q 17Before it drained east through the Batoka Gorge, the Upper Zambezi originally flowed south to join which river?
The Limpopo
Uplift about 2 million years ago blocked that route and created the paleolake Makgadikgadi.
Q 18Which two islands sit on the crest of the falls?
Boaruka Island and Livingstone Island
Boaruka is also known as Cataract Island; Livingstone Island lies near the middle.
Q 19Which French cartographer's 1715 map clearly marks the falls in the correct position, 140 years before Livingstone?
Nicolas de Fer
A Bellin map of about 1750 also marks them as cataractes.
Q 20Which Czech explorer made the first detailed plan of the falls in 1875?
Emil Holub
It was published in 1880; Portuguese explorer Serpa Pinto also visited early.
Q 24The Victoria Falls Bridge was prefabricated in which English town?
Darlington
The Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Company shipped it to Beira in Mozambique, then by rail to the falls.
Q 25Who officially opened the bridge on 12 September 1905?
Sir George Darwin, Charles's son
He was president of the British Association at the time; the bridge took just 14 months to build.
Q 26Which engineer, later principal designer of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, did the stress calculations for the Victoria Falls Bridge?
Ralph Freeman
George Andrew Hobson of Sir Douglas Fox and Partners designed it, with a parabolic main arch.
Q 27How high above the river's low-water mark does the bridge stand?
128 metres
It is 198 metres long and carries road, railway and footway.
Q 28How high is the bungee jump from the Victoria Falls Bridge?
111 metres
In 2011 the cord snapped and an Australian woman fell 24 metres into the river; she survived.
Q 29What was the nickname of the temporary cableway used to carry bridge materials, and even a locomotive in pieces, across the gorge?
The Blondin
Rhodes had insisted the Livingstone to Kalomo line be laid before the bridge was finished.
Q 30In which year did the Victoria Falls Hotel open to serve visitors arriving on the new railway?
1904
Its terrace looks out over the Second Gorge and the bridge.